I was up at 4 a.m. to get to Midway two hours before my flight to Vegas (yes, I’m compulsively early, but never in my life have I missed a flight, train, or bus).
Thanks to TSA Pre-Check, I breezed through security in two minutes, and, thank Ceiling Cat, did not get groped. At the first gate I encountered there was a crowd of older men, many in wheelchairs, and all wearing hats and tags around their neck. The gate was also full of men in orange shirt whose duty was to push the men in wheelchairs onto the plane. On the table to the side were free donuts and coffee (I did not partake).
I asked one of the women shepherding the men what was going on. She replied that this was an “Honor Flight”. I asked what that meant, and learned that, once a month, Southwest flies a planeload of veterans—most from Vietnam but a few from WWII—to D.C. for a ceremony, presumably at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. After that, Southwest flies them home. It’s all for free, and there’s a waiting list.
This is why Southwest is my favorite airline, though it plans some changes in 2025. The passengers on the Honor Flight.
To be sure, I felt a bit weird about honoring men fighting and dying in a futile and unjust war (I was a conscientious objector and worked in a hospital instead of going into the srevice), but on the other hand I have the customary respect for people who risk their lives at the behest of their country.
Now I’m cooling my heels at Midway Airport with about an hour until boarding the four-hour Dishonor Flight to Vegas. I have two Dunkin Donuts and a very large coffee, as well as a copy of a book I’m reviewing and a short novel to read on the plane: The Vegetarian, by Han Kang.
I’ll add some news that I read this morning.
*At the NYT, famed election prognosticator Nate Silver gives his gut feeling about who will win the election. I’ll quote a bit (the piece is archived here.) It’s not pretty:
Yet when I deliver this unsatisfying news, I inevitably get a question: “C’mon, Nate, what’s your gut say?”
So OK, I’ll tell you. My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats.
But I don’t think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut — including mine. Instead, you should resign yourself to the fact that a 50-50 forecast really does mean 50-50. And you should be open to the possibility that those forecasts are wrong, and that could be the case equally in the direction of Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris.
Nate’s reasons:
Instead, the likely problem is what pollsters call nonresponse bias. It’s not that Trump voters are lying to pollsters; it’s that in 2016 and 2020, pollsters weren’t reaching enough of them.
Nonresponse bias can be a hard problem to solve. Response rates to even the best telephone polls are in the single digits — in some sense, the people who choose to respond to polls are unusual. Trump supporters often have lower civic engagement and social trust, so they can be less inclined to complete a survey from a news organization. Pollsters are attempting to correct for this problem with increasingly aggressive data-massaging techniques, like weighing by educational attainment (college-educated voters are more likely to respond to surveys) or even by how people say they voted in the past. There’s no guarantee any of this will work.
If Mr. Trump does beat his polling, there will have been at least one clear sign of it: Democrats no longer have a consistent edge in party identification — about as many people now identify as Republicans.
. . . There’s also the fact that Ms. Harris is running to become the first female president and the second Black one. The so-called Bradley effect — named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who underperformed his polls in the 1982 California governor’s race, for the supposed tendency of voters to say they’re undecided rather than admit they won’t vote for a Black candidate — wasn’t a problem for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012. Still, the only other time a woman was her party’s nominee, undecided voters tilted heavily against her. So perhaps Ms. Harris should have some concerns about a “Hillary effect.”
It’s hard for me to believe that people would take sex and race into account these days (Silver apparently believes that sex is more important than race), but if Harris loses, we’ll never know. Finally, Silver proffers a spoonful of sugar by theorizing about how Harris could underperform in the polls and win the election. One more prediction, and you can read the whole article at the archived link above:
Here’s another counterintuitive finding: It’s surprisingly likely that the election won’t be a photo finish.
With polling averages so close, even a small systematic polling error like the one the industry experienced in 2016 or 2020 could produce a comfortable Electoral College victory for Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump. According to my model, there’s about a 60 percent chance that one candidate will sweep at least six of seven battleground states.
It’s no secret that I’m not a huge fan of Harris, who I think would not be the candidate if we had longer to vet the Democrats, but I’m even less of a fan of Trump, and would be embarrassed before foreigners to admit that someone who dances for half an hour onstage, boasts about grabbing women’s genitals, is subject to five indictments, and curses badly about Harris (I believe I heard him say, before an office, that she was a “shit Vice President—that such a person could be elected to the highest office in the land.
*And the Free Press reports that a lot of the $90 million donated to Black Lives Matter after George Floyd’s death has been embezzled, and for hedonistic purposes:
The spectacular rise and fall of BLM has surprisingly little in common with earlier civil rights campaigns, other than, perhaps, good intentions. How BLM’s leaders exploited George Floyd’s murder to raise millions that they then put into their own pockets more closely resembles the stories of famous grifters like Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos or Sam Bankman-Fried’s foray into “effective altruism.”
. . . . And BLM four years later? It looks like little more than a hustle.
The latest proof point came earlier this month when Tyree Conyers-Page—a.k.a. Sir Maejor Page, the 35-year-old former leader of the BLM chapter of Greater Atlanta—was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for money laundering and wire fraud. Pocketing the $450,000 raised from 18,000 donors to “fight for George Floyd” and the “movement,” Page spent lavishly on himself, splurging on tailored suits, nightclub bar tabs, an evening with a prostitute, and, as he texted to a friend, “a big-ass cribo” that he bought in Ohio after he “won the lottery.”
. . . There are actually two [parent networks of BLM]: BLM Global Network Foundation and BLM Grassroots. The latter was formed in 2019 as an umbrella organization of local chapters of the group and is co-directed by Melina Abdullah. Since then, media reports have accused Abdullah and other chapter leaders of using Grassroots’ coffers to pay for vacations to Jamaica and her own personal expenses. (She hasn’t been charged with a crime.)
Abdullah has denied the allegations, but at least $8.7 million in donations is unaccounted for. The answer to where the money went may come soon. California attorney general Rob Bonta has demanded that Grassroots turn over delinquent tax filings and late fees before Sunday, October 27. If it doesn’t, the organization’s tax-exempt status will be revoked.
And about BLM Global, which was “founded in July 2013 by activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi as an online platform in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in 2012.”
As the national face of BLM, Cullors was suddenly in great demand. She inked a deal with Warner Bros. to create animated kids’ programming, documentaries, dramas, and comedies about structural racism and inequality—none of which were ever made. She and the foundation also spent a big chunk of those donations on an enviable real estate portfolio. They acquired a $6 million Los Angeles mansion, which Cullors used in early 2021 for a Biden inauguration party as well as her son’s birthday party. She and BLM Global paid $6.3 million for a mansion in Canada, which they named “the Wildseed Centre for Arts and Activism” (“a transfeminist, queer affirming space politically aligned with supporting Black liberation work across Canada”). They also dropped $3.2 million on four luxury properties, including a 3.2-acre estate in Georgia that boasted a runway for private aircraft. And BLM Global handed out money to a coterie of Cullors’ friends and relatives, including $778,000 for “services” to an arts group run by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ son, and $1.6 million to a security firm owned by her brother Paul. The foundation also cut checks totaling $205,000 to a company run by Cullors and her spouse as well as a $211,000 payout to Asha Bandele, the friend who helped Cullors write her memoir.
There’s more, and this is really depressing:
And yet, a husk of BLM still exists, and is focused on what might be the organization’s final cause: anti-Zionism.
About all of this what can one say but “Oy gewalt!”?
Good morning!
Wishing you a good flight and hope to see you in Vegas!!!
Amy
Had to laugh at the “Dishonor Flight to Vegas.” Two Dunkin’ Donuts sound good. They are awesome with coffee. I haven had them in a long time.
And—with apologies for being two posts behind and knowing that you talked about excessive hugging at the airport earlier in the day—I want to say that I’m sympathetic to the 3-minute rule. But here in the Pacific Northwest at SEATAC airport, people regularly engage in long-term goodbyes in the drive-up drop-off area at the curb. Three driving lanes of traffic converge at this short stretch, and it’s very difficult to get to the two curb lanes to simply drop someone off with their luggage. Imagine people parked at the curb engaging in long goodbyes while the traffic circles round and round to try to find a spot at the curb. (Just go there and you won’t need to imagine.) A three-minute hug (the New Zealand standard, apparently) is way too long. It should be 30-seconds at most. If you need more than that, get a room!
“A three-minute hug (the New Zealand standard, apparently)…”
News to me, a New Zealander since birth 76 years ago, who now and then drives overseas guests to the drop off zone and once or twice a year sees his wife off from the Auckland Airport departure lounge to her family overseas, but perhaps I’m from a disappearing non-huggy generation.
On the other hand, it might be true of younger females, especially Polynesian, if I may turn occasional observations into stereotpes.
HA! I remember that accurate stereotype from the 1970s and 80s at Auckland Airport. For Polynesians a departure – often back to “the islands” is a major family affair with MILLIONS of friends and relatives seeing them off. 🙂
I always envied it, I thought it was pretty fun – I can see how it isn’t good for efficient traffic management, but their send offs were pretty cool IMHO. For me grandad just said “OK, off you go…can’t stop don’t want a ticket!” and drove off. Kind of an anticlimax for a flight and ANY international flight was a more memorable event in those days.
🙂
Haeri Ra,
D.A.
NYC
(formerly of Australia and NZ)
30 seconds? 5 is perfectly adequate.
More than 5 seconds, and I will feel quite awkward. What do you do with your hands after 5 seconds?
+1
Are you by any chance British?
Got me bang to rights guv.
Some airports have a cellphone lot where one can wait for the passenger’s call once they have landed and picked up their luggage and are at or enroute to the arrival curb. Perhaps there should be a Farewell/Goodbye Lot.
I was in Vegas last week. I can’t decide whether I like that town or not. I guess that means I don’t. I was there five full days for work. My advice is to make sure you go outside everyday. And, if you want a good drink, I recommend the Lapu Lapu at Frankie’s Tiki Room.
Shush! Don’t tell everybody about Frankie’s!
A family member donated their full COVID Recovery Plan checks to BLM. You could see signs of the grifting even then but they thought they were doing it for a good cause; it struck me at the time as someone who donates to their church for missionary work.
Nice of Southwest to do that. I respect the men and women who served, and consider it an honorable thing to do. I personally don’t feel weird honoring Vietnam Vets (I have many older friends who served there) as they were not the ones responsible for starting it and continuing it. McNamara, the generals, and the presidents of that time are the dishonored ones. One of my vet buddies, a man who hates Trump, says the only thing he agrees with Trump on is that generals are S**t.
Not to mention that the men in Vietnam were drafted.
Some Army infantry were, most weren’t. Most combat casualties also were suffered among volunteers, not draftees. (Relative risk in proportion would take more research than Wikipedia but note that elite units turned up their noses at draftees and still took high casualties.) Draftees were deployed to fill military needs around the world. Not all went to Vietnam and not all who went to Vietnam served in combat roles. 98% of the draft went to the Army, the rest to the Marine Corps. Aircrew in both Navy and Air Force were professional career volunteers with many killed or captured.
And of course, draftees served in all of America’s major wars up until 1973. Vietnam was no different in that regard.
The Bradley and Hillary effects. My fear if Harris loses is that too many Democrats will reflexively yell “RACISM!” and “SEXISM!” rather than getting their political house in order. I would expect a fair share to double down with scolding much of the country for its supposed backwardness. Why engage with policy differences when transphobe, xenophobe, Putin stooge, conspiracy theorist, racist, sexist, and other shortcuts around thinking are readily at hand?
Well, if in the unfortunate event Trump wins a side benefit is they might go after the BLM frauds and actually charge them. I can think of dozens of crimes to put these (admitted Marxists) in jail. And RICO charges.
Less fortunate are the human victims of their murderous scam. Stay with me here, as a former defense attorney. I’m a big believer in the Ferguson Effect, whereby police pull back (and attendant lawlessness) cost thousands of (mainly young black) deaths.
Arrest stats and murder stats over time provide further evidence for the theory.
But I guess those black lives don’t matter. Certainly not to Patrice C. and friends in their nice mansions.
D.A.
NYC
In at least one of the examples listed above, the Biden Justice Department got a conviction and the guy has been sentenced. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndoh/pr/blm-activist-sentenced-prison-wire-fraud-and-money-laundering
Here’s hoping more cases of fraud and grift are on the docket.
This “A Place for Trump” ad was retweeted by Carolyn Porco. It’s brilliant:
https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1849116061565616609/video/1
That’s brilliant.
lol
I’ve never been to Las Vegas, but my brother and his wife rave about it. I find this surprising since my brother is also a passionate lover of nature and wildlife. Since you are too, I’m looking forward to what you have to say about it.
Re: Polls. I’ve been getting calls from polling companies almost daily for the last couple of weeks. I haven’t answered any of the calls because I don’t like to participate in polls for a whole slew of reasons. But this raises the question in my mind about whether there are any commonalities amongst poll-refusers like me that would systematically skew the results.
Hard to find out if they don’t answer polls to ask them. Not trying to be cute. This is a fundamental problem in figuring out the magnitude and direction of the non-response bias in all survey research and clinical trial recruitment. We know that subjects/patients who volunteer for medical studies are different from those who don’t. The outcomes of people who volunteer and are selected as eligible are better than the natural history that plays out in the larger population of those who don’t volunteer or who do but are rejected. You have to be fairly healthy to be included in a trial so some of this is selection bias. Still, the personalities of volunteers differs from non-volunteers in many walks of life.
A fascinating result from many years ago before really effective anti-cholesterol drugs came along was seen in a randomized blinded trial of a new promising drug. The mean cholesterol level was no different in treatment vs. control -> the drug didn’t work. But when the researchers looked closely at compliance, the number of dispensed pills that each subject actually took (not knowing at the time if they were active or placebo), they found that those subjects who took most (80% is the usual cut-off) of their pills had lower cholesterol than those who took less than half of them….even though half of the highly compliant subjects were taking inactive placebo, and the other half were taking a drug that didn’t work anyway!
There are lots of ways to speculate about what might be causing what here. The message is that people are more complicated than we think.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
I’ll defer to you on Vietnam. All I can remember are the protests, made up of people who clearly didn’t want to go. But they got all the publicity, not the guys who volunteered. Shows how recollections can be distorted.
I did read a couple of books, both very negative about the war.
“Trump supporters often have lower civic engagement and social trust, so they can be less inclined to complete a survey from a news organization . . . weighing by educational attainment (college-educated voters are more likely to respond to surveys) . . . .”
Does one somehow have an ethical duty to answer pollsters’ questions? Sometimes poll questions are framed in a way respondents find objectionable and do not allow the respondent to respond the way they want to.
What specifically about being college-educated should increases “social trust,” considering the dismal state of “social trust” on hair-trigger cancellation-prone college campuses during the last twenty years?
I voted last week. In the last two days I’ve gotten two mailings from organizations telling me that while my vote is private, whether I voted is a matter of public record, and that if I haven’t voted, they might call me. Oh, I shudder at the prospect! As if I owe such an outfit an explanation.
Regarding inducements to participate in polls prior to the creation of the internet, I remember receiving polls in the mail, with a $1 bill included. My thoughts at the time included, what if I didn’t want to complete the poll? Was I cheating the pollster and should feel guilty about it? Did I need to report the money as income on my tax return regardless of whether I responded to the poll?